from outside

These are things pulled in here or pushed to here from other sources.

Fuck them up

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When it happened a third time, I switched into full “research and destroy the problem” mode. One of my Ars colleagues commiserated with me, writing, “This kind of powerful-annoying stuff is just so common. I swear at least once every few months, some shortcut or whatever just stops working, and sometimes, after a week or so, it starts working again. No rhyme, reason, or apparent causality except that computers are just [unprintable expletives].”

Source: Sometimes, it’s the little tech annoyances that sting the most – Ars Technica

 

That’s cos most IT people think their way is the best way. Particularly UI/UX developers.

arroz-con-yolo:exeggcute:staff: red3blog: formeldeharv: i…

/ from outside, tumblr


arroz-con-yolo:

exeggcute:

staff:

red3blog:

formeldeharv:

i put “All I Want for Christmas is You” through a MIDI converter, and then back through an mp3 converter

the result is this garbage

I’m driving myself up the wall because I swear I can hear the vocal line but I don’t know how that could be if it was truly converted to MIDI. Unless you can replicate speech sounds entirely with modulated MIDI notes, in which case I’m actually impressed with this tire fire of an MP3.

image

the holiday season is almost upon us and I’d like to bring back this absolute fucking monstrosity of an audio file

I’m fucking WHEEZING

original post

They truly did this to themselves

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The practice has since metastasized to so many kinds of products in so many more stores—big-box discounters, beauty retailers, chain pharmacies—that it’s become routine to discover entire aisles transformed into untouchable product galleries armored in plexiglass. The whole thing has a whiff of pawnshop, which might actually be unfair to pawnshops. They, at least, have someone ready and waiting to take things out of lockup.

Source: Why CVS and Target Locking Up Products Is Backfiring – Bloomberg

We gave up on local retailers for 99% of everything we own. If we need to buy something in-person, it’s usually at the nearest co-op, or at Costco. We don’t step into any corporate retailers unless there is a dire need.

Flattened appearances

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Gifford v. Sheil is not the first time an influencer has accused another of copying them — copyright itself is frequently weaponized in inter-creator conflicts through the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) notice-and-takedown regime. Gifford’s suit, which takes the battle out of the realm of platform-level DMCA adjudication and into a federal district court, significantly raises the stakes. Perhaps the suit will serve as a serious warning shot to other influencers, but it mostly strikes me as a last-ditch effort by someone who has exhausted her other (few) options.

Source: The influencer lawsuit that could change the industry – The Verge

The article itself says regardless of who pushes a product on you, amazon still gets paid. This suit has the potential to change the entire ecosystem stateside for content creators… while corporations will stay mum so people forget about their role in the entire situation.

Live by the dunk? Die by the dunk

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I must not dunk.

Dunks are the time-killer

Dunks are the little stress that bring on social alienation

I will ignore bad takes

I will allow them to pass, or block them

And when they are off my feed I will read things that matter

And where the takes have gone there will be nothing

Only I will remain

Source: Annalee @flowerhorne.com – Bluesky

No, but really. Bluesky is not twitter. Trying to bring about the same social dynamics we had there will only bring everyone down.

It’s cheap if your workplace pays for it

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Eatertainment venues are more than destinations for date nights and office parties; far more than the rudimentary arcades and bowling alleys of eras past: Resting on three axes of pleasure (food, drink, and play), they offer a seamless, satisfying, and bonafide human “experience.” Sims and Smash Park operations director Kristin Kroeger, for example, emphasized to me that Smash Park’s true appeal lies not just in pickleball but in the brand’s combined activities, full bar, “scratch-made kitchen,” and premise of social interaction, all of which alchemize into a single “legendary experience.”

Source: What’s Fueling the Success of New-Wave Eatertainment? – Eater Twin Cities

In short, they want you to suffer FOMO if you’re not there when your friends are. Minneapolis is having a bit of a boom in these venues, with the unspoken addition that landlords absolutely love them:

  • Long lease times.
  • Humongous venue sizes. Smash Park in Roseville is 30K square feet. Puttshack in Southdale Center is 25K square feet. Puttery in Minneapolis is 70K square feet
  • A lot of them require parking, helping support mandatory parking minimums. Landlords would love to bring them back after they were abolished.

A lot of these venues are also 18+ or 21+. Children are not allowed. Considering the current political environment, in a couple years there will be no children to speak of so it’ll be a moot problem… until these venues can’t hire young employees:

The labor force is expected to increase by 8.9 million, or 5.5 percent, from 2020 to 2030. The labor force of people ages 16 to 24 is projected to shrink by 7.5 percent from 2020 to 2030. Among people age 75 years and older, the labor force is expected to grow by 96.5 percent over the next decade.

Number of people 75 and older in the labor force is expected to grow 96.5 percent by 2030

All in all. they qualify as Big Business. We know US economic policy hates small businesses— although holding small business as the best of capitalism is a mistake.

Eatertainment wants to replicate the experience of you hanging out with your friends at someone’s place, drinking and eating and playing games. But you get to pay for it.

We are fucked

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We briefly lived in an era in which the photograph was a shortcut to reality, to knowing things, to having a smoking gun. It was an extraordinarily useful tool for navigating the world around us. We are now leaping headfirst into a future in which reality is simply less knowable. The lost Library of Alexandria could have fit onto the microSD card in my Nintendo Switch, and yet the cutting edge of technology is a handheld telephone that spews lies as a fun little bonus feature.

Source: No one’s ready for this – The Verge

Years ago I remember reading a story about a technology that lets you remember everything as it truly happened, no as you remember it happening. The main character realized most of his adult life he had been the one to fuck up. Another one I remember is The Light of Other Days, by Stephen Baxter based on a synopsys by Arthur C. Clarke.

Until we develop a technology like it, any visual media cannot be granted any authoritative display of fact. In a few months (hopefully years) the same will happen to video.

Computer illiteracy is just another symptom of mass disability

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The unhappy truth is the complexity of our technological environment has exceeded the cognitive grasp of most humans. We now have an unsustainable mismatch between “middle-class” work and the cognitive talents of a large percentage of Americans.

Source: Gordon’s Notes: Mass disability measured: in 2016 40% of OECD workers could not manage basic technology tasks

This is something we experienced at helpdeskJerb (a school). Most of the upper management had worked there for decades and had seen the technological environment go from zero tech to full-on academic infrastructure.

… And the vast majority of them could not handle it. About the most they can do is interact via email. Instant messaging? CRM? ERP? Completely out of their abilities. Which meant they need assistants to translate and handle things coming from the system/environment into something they could manage via email… bypassing the system entirely. It’s fine for them, but then someone has to enter the information into the system. During my time there we found this usually doesn’t happen, so there’s a lot of institutional memory that is lost when people leave the school.

That’s the management. Noticed the same thing happening with new students: A fair number of them were completely unable to navigate the school’s intranet and course management systems, requiring extra attention from counselors and assistants to get them signed up for what they wanted to study.

For all that modernity provides, it doesn’t help when you’re disabled. And now with the incoming US administration, they would rather you just die.

it’s okay to just be a manager. It’s fine and we mean it

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But leadership, oh baby, that’s what everyone wants to do. Managing is mundane and leadership is exciting. A manager handles trivialities, like hiring and firing. A leader has the privilege of serving as a shining moral beacon, soothing the trouble, reading the psychodynamic eddies (read: vibes) in the organization. At its best, it is a genuinely noble endeavor, not carried out by whoever happens to be at the top of an organizational chart, but whoever has the capacity to encourage other people to be their best selves at a given moment. The most inspiring person in my life yesterday was not anyone that gives talks about how amazing their own skills are, but the seven year old in the house next door who was drilling table tennis so determinedly that I guiltily got some piano practice in.

Source: Leadership Is A Hell Of A Drug — Ludicity

We’ve worked for chefs and GMs who will say they’re not leaders. They’re just making sure the things that need doing are done and that they’re done properly and in a timely manner. And we’ve worked for leaders who will abuse and belittle everyone in the payroll because they’re inferior and unfit to even be considered for full-time work anymore; then they’re surprised when people leave or ragequit.

Looking at you, bistroBoss, you sack of shite.

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